The subjoined plan is a good example of an existing, well-planned bungalow of one floor, in which every room has external doors and windows, and several have them on two sides. It should be added that every room has one or more clerestory windows to give exit to the heated air that always finds its way to the top of any enclosed space.
In the best class of houses in Persia this principle of free external ventilation is often carried to the extent of all four sides of the rooms being provided with several openings--the different rooms being separated from each other by open passages, running right across the building from verandah to verandah.
As there are often several doors on each side, one easily realises that Aladdin’s hundred-doored palace may have been no mere creation of the fancy, but was probably based on some actual palace--indeed, as a matter of fact, the Subsabad Residency at Bushire has, I believe, a good deal over the allowance of doors assigned to Aladdin’s palace, and I know that the room I occupied there had no less than nine doors, though two of them gave access respectively to a dressing-room and bath-room.
The outline (fig. 4) will give some idea of the way in which the rooms are arranged; but it is needless to say that the plan is a very expensive one. It will be noticed that the southern verandahs are double. Practically speaking, indeed, a Persian house is little else than a series of colonnades, with the spaces between certain of the pillars filled in with door frames, so that it would be an expensive business to fortify one against the invasion of mosquitoes.
Houses of this type are well suited to climates usually blessed with a good breeze, and in which the heat during the day does not reach such a degree as to necessitate shutting it out, and are specially adapted to places where, from scarcity of labour, there is a difficulty about the pulling of punkahs. When, however, the midday heat reaches into the nineties, such a plan of building becomes unsuitable, and it is necessary to adopt the thick-walled type of house, with comparatively few floor level openings; the object being to keep imprisoned the cooler night air, so that the interior may never approach the maximum shade temperature of the day. It is obvious that the adoption of this principle quite precludes all proper ventilation, and that unless the rooms are exceptionally large and lofty it must be positively unhealthy. At the same time, heat beyond a certain degree induces such severe nervous and physical prostration that the adoption of this course is almost unavoidable during the worst hours of the day in such climates as the Punjab; but the shorter the period the better, and as the same reasons that render the house cooler than the outer air in the day, make it hotter at night; it is always well to compensate for the lack of ventilation during the day by sleeping absolutely in the open at night.